Like Clockwork
by yesimahuman
Summary: Tick-tock, goes the clock. Mankind itself was already a machine, pumping out cookie-cutter madmen every few years. Alex was slowly becoming a machine himself, because all good spies are machines, and bad spies don't exist. Those are called dead people.


Like Clockwork

xxx

Tick-tock, goes the clock.

When the clock reached zero the bomb exploded.

When the bomb exploded the madman laughed.

xxx

The world, Alex realizes, is just one big machine. Humanity, more specifically, is one big machine set to self destruct every few years or so.

Mankind has a real talent, it seems, for churning out madmen that want to conquer the world and all that bullshit every few years or so. And while sometimes it isn't conquer the world- when it isn't, it's some closely related tangent, such as get-rich-quick, it usually is.

And, unfortunately for the world's governments, world conquest usually involves numerous amounts of dead, lifeless corpses.

And then MI6, for some reason or another, has to get involved.

Alex really doesn't like the big machine that mankind is.

The madmen are goddamn _carbon copies _of one another. In every single one of them, there is the irrational desire to murder thousands upon thousands of innocents. _Every single one _of the eight madmen he has faced thus far has exhibited this characteristic. And he knows that he is not alone in his struggle against these men. He is only a child. This fact is made painfully aware to him each time Smithers refuses to give him a gun. He is only a child, yet he has faced so many of them

So what about the other agents? They must face just as many madmen- maybe some less crazed, but no doubt some far more maniacal. Maybe some of the madmen out there don't reveal their plans at the last minute, as all of the ones Alex has battled so far have done. Maybe some of them take much more care to their work than the ones Alex has faced. Maybe they don't set a table for a nice dinner and invite the spies to have a seat. Maybe they just shoot spies once they are revealed. These are the times, he thinks, when they send the big boys in. These are the times when _real _spies put their skills to the test. The real spies can kill in cold blood. The real spies know how to not leave any tracks. These spies go by the book- textbook infiltration, textbook break-in, and textbook assassination.

Alex, meanwhile, is only given the job of infiltration.

Then why, why, why, why, _why,_ did he always end up doing the big-boy work each time he had been sent in? There were slightly crazy madmen and there were very crazy madmen but they were _all _madmen he had been set up against. Madmen were all the same once you got to the very core of their soul. They were cookie-cutter versions of one another, all insane, maniacal, _freaks _that humanity had produced. Strip down the different faces and different bodies and clothes and ethnicity, and all you had was pure, unadulterated _evil._

Fourteen year old boys, not matter how skilled in karate, no matter how ingenious, do not deal with madmen. They simply _do not._

Then why was Alex?

xxx

Tick-tock, goes the clock.

Alex didn't know it, but he was a machine as well. All good spies are finely tuned machines. If they aren't when MI6 recruits them, they are when MI6 is finished with them. The same goes for every intelligence agency in the world.

And, really, all spies are good spies. Bad spies don't go by the name of "spies," they go by the name of "corpses."

And because they're machines, spies never fail- unless they're corpses, that is.

xxx

"Alex?" Jack asked, concerned. "Are you alright?"

Alex's smile sprung upon his face in less than a second. He looked up from his bowl of cereal at Jack. "Of course," he said, "why wouldn't I be?"

Jack shrugged. "Well, you were just released from the hospital, and I was just worrying that with all that- that _business,_"

Alex laughed. "Of course, Jack. I'm fine. I have been for the past year, despite what you may think."

Jack remained unconvinced. "If there's anything bothering you-"

"It bothers me that you're so worried about me, Jack. Loosen up!" Alex said, laughing.

His laugh was cold and dead. His eyes were dull and lifeless.

Smoldering embers- that was all that remained of his life outside MI6. They were dull, faint, cold, embers that would go out at any moment.

Did he have any friends outside MI6? He had Tom- but Tom was more of a comrade. He assisted Alex, but they had nothing in common. Alex was a spy, and Tom was not. The only thing between them now was trust- and you can't build a friendship on trust alone. What about Sabina? Sabina had already been dragged down into this whole spy mess. Her father had been targeted twice already. Maybe Sabina wasn't really life outside MI6 after all.

Did he have any family outside MI6? Even his dead relatives had been part of it. Jack- Jack was family, wasn't she? Maybe she, like Hestia of the Ancient Greeks, kept the flame of his normal life alive.

Maybe one day, like the Greek Gods of old, she was fade away.

xxx

Years passed, and no matter how many times he promised himself that he would never again be involved with MI6's business, he showed up at their fake bank time after time again. Some of the missions they assigned him seemed trivial compared to the daring assignments they had given to him in his earlier years. In fact, most of them did.

In reality, Alex had entered a sort of in-between. He was too old now to seem altogether innocent to MI6's enemies, yet still too young to be a full-fledged agent.

Now, the reason that Alex's missions were so easy is because MI6 was protecting him. They were preserving the important resource that was Alex Rider for a couple years, and then they could fully tap into his potential.

Alex, despite whatever he told himself, couldn't wait for that time to come.

xxx

Month by month, year by year, his resolve was eroded. Not the resolve to keep fighting- no, _that _resolve only grew stronger, but the resolve not to kill.

He had killed since the start. He had rammed a snowmobile into Grief's helicopter, he had pushed Cray into the engine of Air Force One, and he had sparked the explosion that killed McCain. But still, he had never killed in cold blood. He hadn't killed Mrs. Jones, and he hadn't killed Yassen- he would not kill for revenge. He could not point a gun at someone and kill them just because they were in the way.

That was a problem.

The inability to kill a man without hesitation was a defect in Alex's otherwise perfect machinery.

It, of course, had to be sorted out if Alex was to become a good spy.

A defective machine is a bad machine, and a bad spy is a dead one.

xxx

Alex Rider's sixteenth birthday was today. Cause for celebration, yes?

Well, no. No, it was not.

_Boom._

The two guards posted to defend that particular part of the compound wheeled around. One of them wheeled around straight into Alex's foot, and he crumpled to the floor.

The wall behind him had been completely destroyed by the impact of Smithers' latest toy. Alex made a mental note to remind the MI6 technician to pack a little less punch in his explosives. If he wanted to blow up a wall, he'd rather use explosives that were clearly explosives and not seemingly innocuous little pens. It made Alex take them a bit less seriously, and that was a problem.

The other guard raced towards the alarm. Alex's eyes widened. This place was swarming with guards, more than he had ever encountered before in his previous missions. His entire plan was to get out quickly. If the guard rang that alarm he would be trapped.

"Stay!" Alex shouted.

The man kept running.

And this time, Alex raised something that wasn't one of Smithers' gadgets. It wasn't a stun gun disguised as a book, or a weak explosive pen. He had already used his stun gun's three rounds disabling the guards that he had previously encountered. The explosion had caused a considerable amount of noise, and if Alex didn't leave fast and _now,_ he was dead.

Alex did not want to die.

So he had taken the gun from one of the guards- not to use, he promised himself, but to intimidate.

His promise was just about as good as the ones he had made resolving not to return to MI6.

The bullet sprang from the gun's barrel like a horse out of the starting gate. Alex's aim was true- not like his attempted assassination of Mrs. Jones. This time, Alex had no qualms. This man would ring an alarm that would kill him. This man was being employed by a madman intent on the murder of as many innocent lives as he could manage. This man was endangering his country's security- and Alex would not stand for that.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Alex's young self protested. He did not want to kill this man. He didn't have to. He was killing another human being in cold blood.

The spy that Alex was becoming turned to this foolish, naïve other, raised a mental gun, and shot it to hell. "The deeds already done," the spy proclaimed, "Shut up. I'm in control now."

Alex killed a bit of himself when he killed the guard. Alex's bullet rammed into the guard's back. The flesh, being a courteous fellow, let the bullet inside. Blood flowed.

And when the next guard ran in, Alex shot him as well, and then he ran for MI6's evac helicopter.

The pilot looked at the gun in Alex's hands with surprise. "I thought that you weren't allowed to use those!" he screamed over the roar of the engine. "Did you actually-"

"Yes, I did," Alex said curtly, "the situation called for it. Not the most ideal success, but a success nonetheless. This mission is in the bag."

And Alex Rider did not feel nauseous- no, he felt _alive._

xxx

Then, Alex Rider, MI6 wonder boy.

Now, Alex Rider, MI6 star agent.

Alex Rider _en fuego,_ baby.

Failure was not in his dictionary anymore. He had taken a flamethrower and brutally torched it out. He was superman in disguise. He was a cyborg. MI6 had genetically fucked him up so that he was perfect. All those successes were really just cover-ups so that MI6 could shove him in the CIA's face to make their American counterparts look stupid. Rumors about his perfection- there was no other word for it- circulated around the spy community like wildfire.

Alex didn't care. He felt alive now. He had never felt this alive in his life, but he felt it now.

He felt it when he pressed the button and felt the heat flood his back as he blew up yet another madman. He felt it as he pulled the trigger and watched men fall before him. He felt it as his fist connected with a man's face and his opponent was knocked backwards, and he felt it even more when he jabbed a knife into the man's gut, finishing the job.

Alex Rider was a professional machine. He ticked like a clock, keeping pace with the machine that was humanity. Humanity would spit out another madman. Alex Rider would walk up to it, raise a gun, and slowly, methodically, blow its brains out.

And maybe he wasn't entirely human anymore. Maybe spies themselves weren't exactly human. Any other person might be disgusted by his actions- killing dozens of people monthly in the name of Queen and Country. Everyone else in MI6, however, (except Mr. Blunt and Mrs. Jones, who regarded him with the same cold attitude as always) revered him as a sort of deity. Alex himself was always rather satisfied with his record- dozens of missions tucked away under his belt, all of them successes. He had served his country well.

Alex, to the rest of the world, might have seemed to be dead, soulless. He was a spy machine, after, all, so he_ must _be soulless. But when Alex worked, he felt so _alive._

When machines do their job they come to life, but when they stop doing their job they die. Alex Rider had become the perfect machine. He would keep doing his job for the rest of his life.

For if he ever stopped, life for him would stop. If there were no more bullets whizzing past his face, no more jumps from airplanes, no more car chases and hand-to-hand combat and the thrill of the kill, life would be absolutely pointless. Alex put his faith in the flaws of humanity, for if the madmen stopped coming, he would stop living.

Without MI6 he was just a shell. Spying was like nicotine, and Alex was one-hundred percent addicted to it, so he _had _to keep doing what he did best.

Alex took the gun out of his suit.

_The gears of the clock turned._

He ducked down as a bullet whizzed over his head.

_The hour hand twitched._

And just like a machine, he raised his gun and pulled the trigger. The man before him died.

_What fun,_

And the gun smoked.

_Says the man with the gun._

xxx

First Alex Rider fanfiction. Tell me if I got Alex down right or if he's terribly OOC and I deserve to be shot. The review button is down there. You know that I know that you know that you can see it.


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